More Than One Way to Catch On Fire
by Tempeck2
Summary: This is an alternate ending/scene from the Pilot of Chicago Fire. I just think it'd probably be more of a problem to fall as far as Casey did, and not get hurt. - It's in Severide's P.O.V. so there's that that you'll have to deal with. :
1. Disclaimer

**Sorry, I always forget this at the beginning of the story, but then I found out that I can move the chapters around... It's like I'm a GOD and the whole world is my oyster! MWAHAHAHAHAH... Anyway, Here's the disclaimer for the entire thing: I don't own anything but the idea for the story. The characters, the setting, the everything but Doctor Sands belongs to NBC and Dick Wolf. Thank You.**


	2. Chapter 1

**Chicago Fire is actually pretty cool. hee hee. Anyway, this won't make too much sense unless you've seen the pilot. I suggest you watch it... cause it's hot. hee hee. Sorry, Um so yeah. Thanks for reading. BTW this is an alternate ending/scene from the pilot of CHICAGO FIRE.**

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"Casey! Are you alright? Hey! Are you with me? Are you okay?"

He has that dazed and confused look on his face. It's the same one he gets when he's drunk or sleep deprived. I already know what he's gonna do. He gonna say some stupid-ass version of I'm fine and then find a distraction. I know it's gonna happen.

He nods, or… something like that, and then says, "Herrmann! Where's…?"

I told you.

He and I rush over to Herrmann, well, I rush over, Casey kinda stumbles over, and I can already tell that something's wrong, but at least he's up and moving. We get over to Herrmann, who admittedly is in a bad way, and try to get him together again. Casey's looking around for what I assume is his mask, which I personally think that he needs just as much as Herrmann, but whatever.

We get Herrmann situated in the make-shift rope pulley thing and they haul his ass out of the fire… literally. Sorry… anyway, we get Herrmann out of there, and then it's just me and Casey. He's not alright. I can tell he's not alright. It's obviously smoky in here, but he's struggling to stay focused to a worrying extent. I point out the table and we get to work. We moved it over to the large ass hole in the floor that Casey had fallen through and damn, that was a long way.

I get him up first, partially because that's procedure, and partially because I don't think I could lift him up once I got up there; stupid shoulder. So Casey's up, and just as I was about to make a clean get away the damn table falls apart. So now I'm hanging from my stupid shoulder staring up at a dazed and confused, but determined, Casey who is either getting longer arms as he tries to pull me up, or I'm pulling him back down. I'm gonna put my money on the second one, Case has always had notoriously short arms.

All of the sudden every fight we have ever had rushes to the front of my mind. Even fights that happened before Andy… Well fights before. Every time I blamed him for something, or every time I made a fuss about one of his guys, or every time we almost came to blows, and would have if there hadn't been someone there to tell us to stop and tell us that we're idiots because we are.

I look up into Casey's unnaturally wide eyes, and I know that he isn't about to drop me. He will go down with me if I don't make him let go. It's been nice…. I should have told Casey that more often. It was nice; despite everything.

And then there are other arms grabbing me, grabbing Casey, pulling us both back up to the main level. We aren't gonna die in this fire.

Thankfully we all make it out of the building and the ground crews start to hammer the damn building with like a billion tons of water pressure. I'm right behind Casey as we stumble out and I've got my hand clutching the back of his jacket.

I told you. I know Casey, whatever's wrong with him, he will completely ignore in favor of checking on everyone and everything else. The little shit's a control freak is what he is. Before I can bodily lead Casey over to the ambulance, someone stops me and tells me that the fire is being contained and Squad 3 is pulling out. I nod in understanding and then turn around to continue to take Casey over to the ambulance when I notice, low and behold, Houdini has risen, and he's going under the assumed name Matthew Casey… I'm gonna kill him.

I look around for a minute before I realize that there are people that I can ask about this kind of thing.

"Otis? Hey, where's Casey?" The dude actually looks around to check if I'm really asking him a question. Does that say something about me? Nah…

"Uh… um, probably went behind Herrmann. They say Herrmann's insides are bleeding, he's already on his way to Mercy." Well, I figure if they got him, whatever is wrong with Casey will be discussed. I mean, he's in an ambulance for God sakes, what could possibly go wrong.

I get on the squad 3 rig and ride out with the rest of my crew. It was a rough one and we're all feeling it. I don't know how I knew that Casey wasn't just gonna let me drop when in complete clarity I had a play-by-play of what a dick I've been to him in the last… as long as we've known each other.

Most of the other guys on my squad didn't get involved in the whole, 'let's run into a burning building, like we get paid to do' thing, so no one is quite as dirty as I am right now. As I'm walking into the locker room to get my stuff so I can go scrub up, I see a sight that I'm truly not surprised to be seeing.

There on the floor, sitting Indian style was Casey with his back to the opposite lockers across from ours. He looked like he was waiting for something. The idiot still had most of his gear on and he looked about ten times worse than he did in the burning, smoke filled building. I heave a sigh and walk up to him because he's still not alright… I'm gonna hurt that Otis guy when I get a chance.

"Case? Casey, what are you doing? I thought you went to the hospital with Herrmann?" I think he can hear me, but I'm not sure. He's looking at something across from him, but I can't tell what.

"Casey? Matt? Matthew, hey, you all right?" I have taken it upon myself to make sure that he's not dying right in front of me. My shoulder is on fire and I still smell like a chimney sweep, but Casey smells the same way, and I am obviously in better shape than he is right now.

Were those dark rings around his eyes there this morning? Did I care this morning?

"Casey…" I wave my hand in front of his face, because I'm sitting on the bench kind of diagonally from him now, and he still looks like a zombie.

He suddenly jumps and looks around like he hasn't realized where he was, and still doesn't know. As he looks around, I can see the moment that he realizes that I'm in the room with him, and I'm about to back away slowly because I don't know how he'll react, but it's not what I expected.

"Kell, have you seen Andy? I've been waiting for him, but the dork is late again. Heather's gonna be pissed if we drop him off late again…" He has this honest to God expectant look on his face, and I'm not even sure that he knows what he just said to me.

My first instinct is to get angry and ask him what he's playing at, but before I can, Casey leans his head forward as he draws up his knees to his chest. I can't do anything but watch, it's like I'm frozen and everything has gone sideways.

"Severide, I'm not joking. Andy said he… he said that it was clear… I told him… I told him that, Heather and Hallie were waiting and that you'd probably be pissed, but I'd tell Kelly that… you, that you'd said there weren't any vents… I'd tell you that it was my fault, and it would be… would be fine."

This physically hurt. I was watching what I hadn't been there to see when we were both off in our own corners licking our wounds and glaring at each other from across the casket when they lowered Andy into the ground.

Casey had lost a lot of color and he was rocking back and forth. He had the shakes and I could tell, upon everything else, that shock was about to set in.

"Case… Matt. Andy… Andy's not coming. Andy's g-gone, remember?" I can't remember having this much patience for anyone ever, but this was not gonna happen. I don't care how much we've drifted, Casey wouldn't let me die, and I went down to save him, and we're fixing us, and this was not going to happen.

Casey nods and then shakes his head, but he seemed to understand what I said. He lifts wide, red rimmed eyes to Andy's old locker, and then stutters out, "I-I know… I know. I- I have to tell Kelly. I have to tell him… I should have grabbed… I should have gone in before him. It's all my fault. It's… Andy was burning… the vents… I should have g-gone in…" Casey trails off, and suddenly I can move again because no… just no.

"Casey… Casey, look at me. No, okay? That's not. I'm sorry, alright… I shouldn't have, I never should have… Oh, Matty. Look I…"

Casey shakes his head, and then looks up at me, I've never seen such haunted eyes before in my life… this, whatever it was… this, all of it, was killing him.

"Kelly, I have to, I should have… I have to tell Kelly. I don't know what I… I do know, I should have… I should have gone in first."

It's the first thing that I've heard come out of his mouth in the last few seconds that startle me into silence.

"Andy… Andy should be here. He should be here. They were- were right… Kelly, Hallie, everyone they were right. Andy deserves to… deserved to be…" He's panting now and he's basically moved to hug himself. In my own dazed state, I wonder vaguely if Casey's insides are alright. I mean, Herrmann's in surgery and Casey fell just as far as he did.

"It would be so easy… so easy, if Andy… If I was gone, and he was-was here. I want to tell him… I want to, but I can't, I can't find him." Casey looks back up at me, and I'm stunned at how horrible this is. How much it sounds like Casey had just given up… but didn't he have a right to? After everything that we'd been through; that Casey had been through. He just looked so broken… and injured.

And injured…

"Casey, hey… Matthew. We are talking about this later, but right now, where are you hurt?" Because I know Casey, and I've seen him hurt, and he look a lot like this when he's about say, 'I'm fine.'

"I'm fine… I'm okay… I think that, I don't…" Casey looks momentarily confused a split second before his eyes roll back into his head and he passes out. His slumps back against the lookers and I can see something that looks a lot like blood on the blue surface…. I'm gonna kill him, if he isn't dead.

I'm beside him faster than I'd like to admit. I check his pulse to make sure that he really hasn't died and then I sit back on my haunches and just look at Casey. He's thinner than I remember… He looks all together nothing like that little prick that Andy introduced me to all those years ago, who despite us having completely different attitudes toward absolutely everything, somehow managed a friendship that got depleted when we needed to stick together the most.

I don't remember calling out for help, but suddenly some of my squad's there, and someone has called an ambulance, and they came and took Casey to the same hospital as Herrmann, and now I'm by myself… and that's just…

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**There will be more... please review... Thank you for reading... I really like Jesse Spencer... That will be all. **


	3. Chapter 2

**This is the newest addition, I realize that since we've all seen the pilot and episode 2 by now, that none of this is relevant, but I still like it. Thank you for reading and hopefully you like it. Thank you for the great reviews as well! :**

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"Two broken ribs on his left side, a fractured and a bruised one on his right, He has a severe concussion and that's why I want him here overnight for observation. We're also treating him for what looks like sleep deprivation and slight undernourishment along with shock." Doctor Sands rattled all of this off to me, the Chief, Dawson, and Shay. The rest of the squads were all, and I do mean _all_, in the waiting room. When the ambulance showed up with Casey in tow, the rest of both of our squads decided to show up and camp it out.

Dawson looked physically ill, it was a good thing that Shay was there or Dawson might have passed out already. The Chief didn't look as mad as I thought he would. Sure he probably heard that when we all got back to the station, everyone found me kneeling over an unconscious Casey, who looked like a ghost, there was blood, and then an ambulance had to be involved, so he must not be very happy with this situation, but he didn't look it. He actually looked kind of… anxious? No…. worried. He looked worried.

"Ok, so after his release, I'm going to need someone to check on him regularly to make sure that he is functioning well, and that this 'not-taking-care-of-himself' thing is bit in the ass. 'Cause, I like him. Whenever someone on any of your squads gets hurt, or is just being too stupid to care, it's always Matty here who hauls them in. Looks like that caught up with him… so I want verbal conformation here."

Doctor Sands is a nice lady; usually not at all violent, and most of the time very motherly; which isn't a horrible thing. At the very least she's described as a small, blonde, firefighter's doctor; which is good because we usually need at least one.

All of us nod our heads, but the Chief is the only one who actually answers. "He will be looked after, and sternly talked to, make no mistake." He looked directly at me when he said the word 'sternly', so I'm looking forward to that.

I look over at Shay who is basically holding Dawson upright at this point, and then there's the Chief… who now not only looks mad, but probably is. Which is, yeah? So I say… out loud: "I've got watch."

Some of the guys from our squads have wondered into the room, and were talking about Herrmann and some other stuff, but they, and Dawson, and Shay, and The Chief all turn to look at me, like I'm the concussed one in this situation.

"What?" This shouldn't surprise them this much… I guess this last month looked a lot worse from where they were standing.

Dawson, Shay and I all stay in Casey's room for a little while, but after several hours of Matt not waking his ass up, I suggest that they both go home and get some rest. Shay looks grateful and takes a protesting Dawson out of the room just as the Chief comes in.

Me, Casey, and the Chief… yeah, this is different. Except usually Matt is awake and glaring at me, so I guess this is kind of different.

"Kelly." The Chief has as much subtlety as I do with just about everything. There is no way that he'll breach this subject without making it sound way worse than it actually is.

"You gonna camp out here until morning?"

I suck at this game… the, 'let's guess what everyone else is thinking' game. I could only ever do it with Matt and Andy.

"Uh… yeah, I guess. That alright?"

The Chief looks at me… well he glares, but that's like his default setting so, the Chief looks at me and then asks, "Is that alright with you? I mean, you and Matt… there's still that rift I was talking about."

I know what he's thinking this time. It's what everyone else was thinking when I first said that I'd stay with Casey. Yeah, and I get it. Matt and I haven't been on the best of terms, or the worst of terms. We've been on like, Hellfire and Brimstone terms. I'd like to think that even if Casey and I had come to blows at some point, we still would have put that aside when we were on the job. I can't say that I'd have blamed Case if he would have dropped me with the way that I've been acting, but still…

"I know Chief. I'll… I'll stay anyway. We have a few things we need to discuss."

The Chief raises his eyebrows in that way that makes me question the decisions I've made in life, but he doesn't say anything about that; instead he nods and then turns to leave.

"Go easy… I'm gonna want him coherent when I chew him out for his lack of self-preservation."

The Chief left and as he walked away I could see Shay in the corner of my eye, lingering by the door frame.

"Hey." I say to her and wait until she comes into the room and shuts the door behind her.

"Hey," She says as she looks up from glancing at Casey's chart. I didn't know that she had any training in looking at those things, but if that's what helped her not to get on the bed and start shaking Matt until he woke up, then that's what it took. "Um, I'm gonna take Gabriela to her place and make sure she gets in alright. Some of the other guys are still here, and we'll be back in the morning, I'll bring you some stuff."

I nod a thank you, but I don't say a lot. The way that Leslie and my relationship works is kind of simple/complicated. I try not to delve into it too much, or my conscience starts to throw up.

She's looking at me weird, but doesn't say anything. She is watching Matt as if he's just joking about being unconscious, and then she turns to me. "You didn't? No, these are all from the fire right?" She's walked up to Matt and she pulls the sheet that is at chest level down a little. The bandages that are wrapped around his ribs do little to hide the bruises that are pretty much all over his torso.

Wow, he really has gotten thinner…

Hey wait…

"Shay?" She's about to leave but turns around when I address her. "Casey… where's Hallie? Didn't anyone call her?" Because, I may not be BF-freaking-Fs with Matt, but the last time I checked he did have a fiancé, and it's weird that she's not where I am right now. Not to mention the fact that I'd like to think that Hallie… no, I know that Hallie wouldn't let Matt be malnourished or sleep deprived, or any of this shit.

"They… they aren't, together right now. Don't ask me, I don't know. I just know that he moved out, and she's still on shift right now. Someone called her, but I don't think she answered or something." For a moment I can see that Mama-Bear thing that Shay does sometimes when we're out drinking and a bar fight breaks out. I don't know how close she and Matt are, but if she's made at Hallie, then she must think pretty highly of him.

She's just leaving when I realize what she asked me when she lifted up the sheet to see Matt's bandages. Did I do this? Did I… How could she think….

You know what? I get that.

"Shay!"

She turns around but she doesn't look like she wants to talk right now. "Just make sure to call the doctor if anything happens, and call me and Dawson when he wakes up." She raises her eyebrow and then leaves.

I sit down heavily in the **WORLD'S MOST UNCOMFORTABLE SEAT**, and settle in for the long hall, thinking about the talk that Casey and I will be having as soon as he wakes his lazy, unstable ass up.

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**In the next installment, we get to wake Casey up and see what everyone has to say about that. I think I'll just continue these stories/alternate scenes throughout the other episodes. I hope everyone enjoys these. Please review and THANK YOU so much!**


	4. Chapter 3

**Ok sooo, remember when I said that everyone would be there when Casey woke up? I lied. I'm sorry. Don't hate me. I did have Severide there when he woke up, so there's that. Right, so Here's more, and Thank you sooo much for the AMAZING reviews. :) I heart you all. **

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I don't know what woke me up, but I was having the best dream about a girl that I saw who came into the station the other day. I don't know what she was doing there, but _damn_ I hope she has a reason to come back.

Oh…. Right, I don't know what woke me up, but as I pealed my back from the **WORLD'S MOST UNCOMFORTABLE CHAIR**, I realize that I'm looking straight at the profile of Lieutenant Matthew Casey, sitting up in his hospital bed, and he does not look well.

Matt looked like he just woke up from one Hell of a nightmare. It looked like he was still a little out of it and not to mention, white as a ghost. The nurses have been coming in every hour to wake him up so he doesn't like, slip into a coma or anything; because that would be horrible, and I would feel like shit, not that this is really my fault, but I feel like it kind of is, and Matt hasn't said one coherent thing since before the fire last night, and I'm… a little worried.

His breathing is heavy and that can't be good for his ribs. I realize that the pain meds they have him on must be kick-ass, because he's not writhing around on the bed in pain or anything, so that's good.

He starts to shake his head like he's trying to remove every memory he's ever had, and I'm about two seconds from reaching over and calling for the doctor when Matt turns his head so sharp I thought he'd get whiplash.

Seriously. Good. Meds.

Matt has this thing that he does with his eyes sometimes. They get impossibly wide, and ridiculously blue, and I want to turn away and hide because he's so confused and it actually hurts to look at that 'lost puppy' look, that he doesn't even know that he's doing.

Dammit Casey…

He looks scared. Casey looks scared. I've seen him scared maybe five times, ever. I'm not going to name them because those were pretty much the only times that I was scared too. I don't think anyone realizes the kind of shit that Andy, Matt and I used to get into.

For a second I thought that he was about to just pass out again like he'd done the last fifteen times, but all of the sudden his eyes slide from wide and confused to narrow and what looks like pissed off.

"Matt?" I ask as quietly as humanly possible. I've been on the receiving end of many concussions, and they suck ass. The last thing that anyone who has a concussion wants is someone rushing them and asking a bunch of questions about how they feel. 'My brains been wracked around in my skull, and I can't focus on shit, that's how I feel.' At least that's what my inter-monologue sounds like.

"S-sever-severide?" Matt grounds out. Oh shit.

He winces at the sound of his voice, but then again so do I. He sounds awful. I've pulled people out of burning buildings that sound less like stroke victims then Matt does.

"Hey," What do you say to a person that you've been tormenting for the past month, and the last thing they probably remember was you standing over them, while they clutch their chest in agony and squinted blindly up into the face of their tormentor? "Do you want some water?"

Well, that wasn't rhetorical. What do you say, because this is all I got.

Instead of answering, Matt looks around the room and realizes where he is. I think he's actually starting to come out of his little 'concussed trance'. I've prepared for this moment; when Matt was coherent enough to talk about just what the Hell all of that was in the locker room, before he went all unconscious on me.

I'm about to break my own rule about not questioning concussion victims, but before I can, Matt's face goes into 'Blank Casey' mode. It's this other thing that he does with his face when he's about to show any type of emotion. Casey's the type of person to bottle it up until the problem presents itself as an inoperable tumor. I can't see this conversation going anything but horrible if he checks out now.

"Matt? Do you need me to call the doctor? Are you in any pain?"

He'll say I'm fine in three… two… one-

"I'm fine. What are… what are you doing here Severide?" He's not fine, and I can tell he's lying because I've played poker with this man, and he doesn't know that when he lies his right eye twitches a little and he goes into this defensive thing where he has to touch his arms or his chest or some part of his body. Andy and I perfected a way to cheat Matt out of almost every card game we ever played together.

Right now his eye is twitching up a storm and he's holding his chest in a way that suggests that his body is already fighting the pain meds in his system.

"I'm gonna call the doctor then Shay and Dawson, they should be awake by now anyway." I reach for the call cord again, and almost wrap my fingers around the button when I hear a squeak. I look up and see the idiot, who leads people into fires and is supposed to be the most responsible person under the Chief at a fire house, getting up out of his _hospital_ bed. I don't know how this guy got through life without being strangled due to stupidity, but now he's just downright pushing his luck.

"Matt-"

"What time is it? W-why-"

He's confused. I get that. I would be too. I can't believe I'm about to say this for what seemed like the ten millionth time: "Casey." I wait for him to look over at me. He does but it's not like I have his full attention. He's eye's twitching too much for that to be true.

"Matt. It's-" I actually have to look over at the clock in order to remember the time, like I hadn't done that ever minute for the past few hours. "It's 5:28 in the morning." Maybe Shay and Dawson wouldn't be up. "Do you remember what happened?"

I watch him for any sign of recognition, but he's staying firmly in 'Blank Casey' land. He hasn't fully gotten out of bed, but his covers have slid down past the bandages on his chest and he's propped up on his hands with his legs close to the side of the bed, and his torso twisted; he's got that, 'I'm about to sprint out of here like an Olympic gold medalist' look on his face.

Ignoring my question again, which doesn't mean that he didn't hear it or wasn't coherent enough to answer, he looks down at his chest like he's never seen bandaged ribs before and then he looks up at me.

"W-what are you… why are you here Kelly?" Oh so I guess we're just gonna ignore the fact that he passed out right after going all Sybil on me back at the station. Oh, ok.

"Surprisingly enough, as it turns out, the world does revolve around you, Matthew. I just thought I'd catch up with the craze and make sure your self-destructive ass didn't slip into a coma or anything." Okay, let's face it, no one in there right mind would have left it up to me to have good bedside manner.

The surprise that is evident on his face shows me that I am probably one of the worst people on the planet Earth, but his next question doesn't help at all:

"Why?" His eye twitches again and I'm starting to think the concussion is more of a factor at this point as opposed to him lying to me.

I stand up, slowly, because Matt still looks 'flight or flighty' to me, and walk over to the dimmer lights on the wall. I don't know why I feel the need to hold up my hands in surrender whenever I look at him, but it seems to put him at ease a little and that probably makes us both feel a little better.

"Why don't I want you comatose, or why are you in here in the first place, because you've woken up like six times, and you've never actually asked why you were in the hospital to begin with."

I'll say it. I'm worried. I don't know what's going through his head, and I'm worried that whatever it is will be shockingly close to what he said to me in the station. All of the 'don't deserve to be here' shit, and the 'you were right' stuff. I didn't like it then, and I won't like it if his answer doesn't involve him asking about his health.

Instead of him answering anything that sounds like what a normal person would ask, Matt drops his backward and his head falls back on the brick-like pillow that every hospital bed comes with. I want to slap him upside his damaged brain for that, but I realize that he didn't do that on purpose, and he was actually losing his grip on consciousness.

"Casey?"

He's panting a lot more now, and every breath that he takes is obviously straining his lungs.

"Casey, I'm gonna call the nurse and she'll get you some more meds, okay?" My fingers are two inches away from his call button when I feel a weak pull on my 'not so good' shoulder.

I wince, but I keep my focus on him because he's looking at me now with the most intense stare that I've seen him give me, besides glares, in a long while.

"Wh-what's wrong? Why… why are… what's wrong?" He's again lost all color in his face, but he still looks ridiculously intense and I can't shrug off his grip no matter what, even though he's as week as a kitten right now.

I can't tell what he's asking about, and suddenly it doesn't matter anymore because I'm being pushed away from Casey, his intense glare, and everything that was wrong with that conversation.

There are nurses everywhere and Doctor Sands, who collectively don't look happy with this situation. They start to swarm around Casey's bed and that's when I realize that there are alarms going off, and they were all coming from Casey's monitors.

There med-speak is way too complicated for me to follow right now, or ever for that matter, but then they're doing something with gel and paddles, and from my corner of the room, I can see that nothing is going well. I'm panicked, and then I'm forced to step outside, by one of the nurses and she has the most sympathetic look on her face and I want to ask her what's wrong, but then the door slams in my face. I can see everything that's going on through the window anyway, but I'm kind of glad that I'm not in there at the moment.

There's a second, before I turn away because someone has called my name, that Matt looks over at the window, and he looks… he looks very…. Sorry. I don't know why. I don't know. I want to ask him, but suddenly my arms are full of a very sad and hysterical Hallie.

Wait… Hallie? Where did she-

"Oh my God! Kelly, what are- what's… where is he? You didn't-" Nothing she said made any sense at all, but then the door to Matt's room opens up, and out rushes all the nurses pushing Matt's bed, and Dr. Sands runs out behind them.

She doesn't stop for long, but she turns to me and Hallie and says in the most distractingly sad tone, "He's got a punctured lung, and we think he might actually have a skull fracture. I can't believe we didn't catch that. We're taking him into surgery for the lung, but we can't do anything about his head until we're sure that he won't bleed out from internal injuries." She turns to run off after the rest of the nurses, but before she goes she turns back and says, "If there is anyone else that should be here just in case… call them." She runs off and that's it.

It's quiet again and I don't know what to do with myself…

And that's when I felt a hand slap me in the face.

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**Now during the next chapter, everyone comes in, and it's basically an awesome part of the story... maybe... thank you so much for reading this far, please review, and Bon voyage... (that was french... yeah, I know) THANK YOU!**


	5. Chapter 4

**So I've decided that this is the last Chapter in this story. I don't know if this was the right way to end it, but I kind of like it. So, here it is, and Thank you all so much who read, and thank you to those who reviewed, I appreciate it more than you know! :**

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Have you ever been slapped before?

No?

Well, it hurts.

A lot.

I've been slapped many, many times, but then again, I live with Shay.

She may be into girls, but that doesn't mean she's not one. I can do the smallest things and have a 100% guarantee that physical harm will be received.

Leave the toilet seat up? Slapped.

Forgotten to take out the garbage? Slapped.

_Not_ eating her yogurt, or whatever nature food she has clogging up the refrigerator? Slapped. Twice.

So it's not like I don't know what it feels like. It's just that, usually when a girl slaps me, it's because I've done something that most human being s have a filter to adjust whatever it is that was said, often in stupidity. For this particular encounter, with the girl that was supposed to be engaged to someone that was currently in surgery, who use to be one of my best friends, that I'm trying to fix, or at least break less, and…. Holy shit that was complicated even for me, and I'm the one thinking it.

"Hallie! What the Hell?" Take into consideration that I haven't actually talked to this women in well over a month, and she looks like she could kill me, hide the body, and come back to work like it was nothing. I chose my words extremely carefully.

"Kelly, how could you!?" How could I? She's supposed to say that after I've slapped her back... Strange.

"What-"

"Severide! What in God's name is going on!" That… was not Hallie. I turn to my left and see Dawson, Shay, the Chief and some of the other guys from Casey's truck coming toward us. The capacity that I need in order to figure out what I should be telling them is interrupted with the thought that, 'Wait, I didn't call you guys. Casey, just went into surgery. I was busy getting slapped. What are you doing here?'

So I say: "Wait, I didn't call you guys, Casey just went into surgery, what are you doing here?"

I left out the getting slapped part because… well they don't need to know everything.

"I called them." I turn around, with my back to Hallie, I need to protect my face somehow, and I see Dawson's doctor. I don't mean that she has her own doctor, but even I can tell that this guy is trying valiantly to claw his way out of the friend-zone with her.

"I was just in the OR when I saw them bring in Lieutenant Casey in, and I called Gabriela because Dr. Sands said-"

The Chief, who has always had a very short fuse, interrupts Dawson's doctor and yells, "I repeat: What the Hell happened? I would like a Goddamn answer in the next five seconds, if that's not asking too much!"

So many things are happening right now. The Chief is threatening, Dawson is hyperventilating, Shay is glaring at Hallie, Hallie is glaring at me, the rest of the guys are looking as confused as I am, and Dawson's doctor looks uncomfortable as hell.

"Matt, woke up, and he… was confused. He had trouble breathing… then passed out, the doctor- Doctor Sands says he has a punctured lung, and possibly a fractured skull… I don't-" I would have reiterated what I said in order to keep Dawson conscious, but I have a feeling that I'll be defending myself in a few minutes against the barrage of accusations that are coming my way, but at least I didn't get slapped again.

"I won't ask again! What the Hell happened?" Suddenly the Chief isn't talking about Casey's injuries right now, but when they happened earlier in the day and no one had big enough balls to go tell him exactly what everyone found in the fire station.

Dawson's doctor- I really need to figure out his name, he tells everyone where they can wait, and that prompts Shay to take Dawson and Hallie with the rest of the guys over to OR waiting room. I get the absolute pleasure of telling the Chief what went down after the fire, and the fact that I didn't do this to Matt…

But, I kind of did. I didn't make him go into the fire, I didn't make him save me after clearly getting banged up in the process of falling two floors, but I mean… After what I heard from him in the station… I don't know. He looked so broken, after everything that we've been through, and one month of absolute Hell from me, and he looked half-dead before the fire. Hadn't he? Did I care then? Do I care now?

Yes.

"Well?" We're back in the room that Casey was in before the whole, punctured lung, rush to surgery thing.

"You… may have been right about that- that rift thing…"

The Chief's eyebrows rise to an outstanding height and his face sets into that permanent glare that he gets whenever Matt and I are involved.

"Severide… so help you God, if you were the cause of his injuries." He starts to pace in front of me, and I can barely look up, I just don't know what I'm supposed to say. I can't tell him that it wasn't my fault because I think it was. Logically I know that I didn't cause Matt's injuries, but… I don't freaking know!

"I have a whole two whole squads of firefighters that don't know what the Hell happened, a paramedic who's already in trouble with the board looking like she's about to keel over, two subordinates, who are supposed to be in charge of the other animal's in the funny farm at each other's throats whenever they're on duty, and now I have one of them in surgery sporting injuries that no one knows how they got there. Tell me Kelly, look me in the eyes and tell me you didn't cause those injuries on Matt. Tell me that."

Okay… I may not be sure if I broke Matt in the last month because of the Darden incident… because of losing Andy, but now that I know the damage done due to everything that's happened in the last month, I'm going to fix this, and to do that, I can't be in prison on assault charges. So I square my shoulders, dammit I need to talk to Shay about some medicine… So, I square my shoulders; look the Chief directly in the eyes and say:

"No… I didn't. I was going to bring him in with the rest of the crew after the fire, but he slipped out on me after we came out of the building. He fell two stories to the ground level in there, and that's what caused his injuries. I know what you were talking about with the whole 'rift' thing, and now I'm going to fix it. No matter how much Matt and I have been at each other's throats and all that shit, I'm going to fix it."

It wasn't the yelling I couldn't handle. The Chief yells all the time. He looks mad all the time. He glares all the time. He's basically a high school principal with firefighters instead of students. The yelling I could handle. It's his silence that's killing me.

He's looking at me like he can't tell if I've ever said a truthful thing in my life. I go over everything I just told him in my head, and with absolute certainty I didn't say anything that would lead him to believe that I'm not telling the truth, and as soon as he left earlier I got up on the bed and started beating Matt until he almost… died. He almost died.

"Ok." That's it. That's all he has to say?

Ok.

We leave the room and meet up with everyone else in the OR waiting room. I can see everyone's eyes go to the Chief and me. It must have been something the Chief did or said, because instantly the tension from Matt's squad and Dawson, and even Hallie gets dropped.

One obstacle down… several to go.

We all wait there for what seemed like forever. People came in and went out. The only good news that we got was that Herrmann came through surgery just fine and would be good as new in a couple of weeks. It wasn't much, but it did get everyone to feel a little better about Matt's chances now that all of his squad was gonna be okay. Those guys would be like chickens with their heads cut off if Matt weren't there.

At one point, Shay pulled me out of the room and gave me some clean clothes and some… medicine for my shoulder. I don't know what she said to Hallie or what went on while the Chief and I were in the other room, but suddenly Hallie is looking straight at me when Shay and I walk back into the room. She gets up and is heading my way, and I resist the urge to cover my face with my hands because A) I'm a grown man, B) She seems much less angry at me now, and C) If it ever got back to the station that I coward because of Hallie I would have to quit... and move.

"Can I… can I talk to you in the hallway?" She seems quieter then I remember her, but that could just be me. We move out into the hallway and I put my hands in my pockets to hide how nervous this is actually making me.

"I- I'm sorry I hit you. I was on call and someone said that they heard that Matt got brought in, and then all I could think of was how much you two have been fighting lately… and I'm sorry."

I want to say, 'How would you know how much we've been fighting, word in the station is you two aren't even a thing anymore.' But that sounds less like something I would say, and more like something Shay would say. But she would do it in the way that made it seem like she wasn't really mad, but in actuality she's plotting your murder in her capable little head.

"It's ok. With the way things have been in the last month… I don't- I don't blame you for being mad. Has anyone told you what's happened or-". I can't remember ever having a conversation with Hallie that didn't end with her looking at me like I was some kind of smudge on the bottom of her shoe, and in all fairness, I don't think I've ever said anything to her that didn't sound something like, 'We should do it sometime.' But that's not a problem right now, because Doctor Sands is coming out of the OR doors and we walk back into the waiting room in time to hear about Matt.

"It was touch and go for a little while, we couldn't find the tear in his lung, but we did and we stitched it. We didn't see it before because a piece of the fractured rib broke off and tore through his left lung. While he was out we did a CT scan and discovered a crack in his skull, but we're positive that it won't need surgery as long there aren't any more complications. He's coming out of the OR and we're going to put him in the ICU for the rest of the day. Hopefully he'll be awake and well enough to move to a standard room in the next day or so."

We all take a collective breath of relief at this news. It's probably the best we could have hoped for under the circumstances. Shay, Dawson, and Hallie all break off with Sands to talk about whatever it is that medical people like them talk about. Some of the guys are talking about going to a breakfast place before heading into the station. The Chief is looking at me, and suddenly I want to be anywhere but where I am.

Doctor Sands leaves after a few minutes, and the guys leave after that. It's a sure bet that all of them will be back sometime before Matt gets out of the hospital. Dawson and Shay are on shift too so they say their goodbyes and leave me alone with the Chief. I don't know where Hallie went, but after the intense glaring that she was getting from Shay, I wouldn't have stuck around either.

So, It's just me… and the Chief. I would give anything to switch places with Casey right now.

"You're gonna fix this? This colossal, month long mess?" He doesn't sound like he doesn't believe that I can do this. He just seems… glad.

"I'm going to try." I don't know if I can give him more than that right now, but I'm going to try to be like the Kelly and Matt that we were before we lost Andy. I guess that's all that I can do right now.

"Don't try. Do." The Chief is like Denzel Washington when it comes to dramatic sentences. He inspires, but he doesn't do that Douchey thing that the orange haired guy from _CSI: Miami_ does, which is appreciated.

He stands up to leave, and I realize that I'll probably be here when Matt wakes up again, and everyone who already left trusts my not to screw it up. It means a lot that I'm on babysitting duty again. It's been a long time.

"Gear up for an Intervention. The second he gets his ass back to the station we are going to have words about this 'not-taking-care-of-himself' shit that Sands warned us about." I don't know if that was him putting me in charge of the intervention, or him asking me to make notecards, but whatever it was, he trusts me to get Matt there in one piece, and I think I can handle that.

So now it's just me and Matt.

I'm sitting beside Matt's bed in the ICU, and no one else is there.

I'm now in a different chair that is no more comfortable than the ones in any other room in this hospital, but whatever.

Matt's still unconscious, my shoulder kind of hurts.

I still kind of smell like smoke, but Matt does too so I guess that's ok.

We still need to talk when he wakes up, and Andy Darden, our best friend, died a month ago.

But I'm starting to close the rift, and I think… I think I'll get my other best friend back too.

-Fini-

"**There may be **_**more than one way to catch on fire**_**_,_ but if you're creative, there's _more than one way to put it out too_****." - Unknown Author**

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**And that was it. Thanks again for everything. If you ever have a prompt for a Chicago Fire fic, send it my way, and I'll see what I can do. Thank you all so much, please review and tell me what you thought about the whole thing, and SEE YOU! :**


	6. Epilogue

I wasn't going to do this, but I slowly came to realize that my story was indeed a cliffhanger, and that seemed awfully douchey of me. So, here is the epilogue to More Than One Way to Catch on Fire. This will address the comfort part of the story. I hope you enjoy it thoroughly, thank you for reading! :

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"If you would stop struggling this would probably go a lot faster." I can't believe this is happening. One minute I'm in the hospital next to Casey watching him wake up for the umpteenth time in confusion and disarray. Next thing I know I'm helping him fill out forms for his release, wondering, not for the first time… WHERE THE HELL IS HALLIE!? Because I didn't know a Goddamn thing on those frickin' form… Well, except for like, his birthday… and his insurance policy… and well, a lot more than I thought that I knew.

And now here I am helping him into his house, and if that's not a whole new struggle with life that we have to deal with right now, than I don't what is. It's hard enough dealing with Matt when he's lucid and healthy. The drugs they have in this kid right now are ridiculous. I don't think he knows what's going on in the slightest, and it's only been four days since Matt got out of surgery, but they only released him about an hour ago so, yeah.

Getting him home was supposed to be the hard part. You know, getting him from his hospital room to the car, watching his head lull around on the seat, trying not to laugh as he babbles nonsense about carpeting work and whether or not we need a schedule in the firehouse kitchen for sandwich duty.

It was actually kind of hilarious.

I did not however think the hardest part would be getting him from the car into his house, where there is STILL NO HALLIE!

I don't remember Casey having so many arms. He's like an octopus!

"Matt! Just- could you please- just… Casey!" He didn't have this many arms when I met him.

"Kell… did you- do you know… have- has there…" He trails off after that destroyed sentence and his eyes glaze over like he's going to pass out again.

"Matt, do not pass out on me. I am not carrying your sorry ass all the way up these stairs, I swear to God." I can't imagine that he can hear the 'I would kick your ass if you weren't already this damaged' tone in my voice, but he doesn't pass out, which is a plus, and we do make it in the house and up the stairs.

It's then that I notice that not everything in the house is as I remember it. Granted I hadn't been there in about a month, there are some things that he seemed to be lacking. Like furniture, and finished rooms… and there were three more doors upstairs then there were last time I was here… and there's an upstairs… and was the bathroom always pink?

"This isn't the right house." I say out loud, like there's someone around to hear me. No, this has to be the right house, he has keys for this house; I used those keys to gain entry. This has to be the right house.

"Matt… Did you get robbed?" I look over at Octopus boy and watch him as he swivels his head from left to right checking things, not very thoroughly, but whatever.

"No…. I-I don't think so… Severide? Why- why are you in my house?" I'm about to answer that question… again… literally the tenth time since we left the hospital.

'Kelly, where are we going?'

'Severide… what are you doing here?'

'Kelly, what's going on?'

'Kelly, why are you in my house?'

If I ever wondered what it was going to be like having a five-year-old then I can stop wonder now.

"Matt, where's Hallie?" I seriously want to know now. I mean, the women slapped me a couple of days ago. Not that I want to slap her back… okay, I kinda do, but she should be here. She works at the hospital. I called her and told her Matt was getting released today.

SHE SHOULD BE HERE!

"Hallie? Why- where would… why would Hallie be here? She doesn't live… we don't… she's probably at her p-place." Casey stutters this out as he shrugs out of my embrace and grips the wall for support.

"Oh God, this is the wrong house." I mutter to myself. No, this can't be the wrong house. He has keys, not to mention he's shuffling slowly toward one of the bedrooms, and is that? Yep, this is definitely Matt's place. No one else could have that messy of a room, and still pull off the pristine firehouse lieutenant shtick.

"Is making your bed against your religion?" I can't help it. There are clothes everywhere. Granted they are folded, but that doesn't mean they aren't everywhere. Papers are laying on every surface, and coffee cups are on top of those.

"I would say s-something clever… but… I can't even-" Matt cuts himself off by stumbling onto his unmade bed and thoroughly passing out.

I would be worried about him causing himself further injuries, but with the stuff he's on, I doubt he could feel an earthquake.

I placed his pills on his bedside table and then went down to get a water bottle and a notepad so I could right out the doctor's orders. There is a bottle of ketchup, two beers, a jar of glue, and five water bottles in his refrigerator.

Okay…

I catch a glimpse of the clock as I walk back up stairs and see that it is getting late. As I round the corner and stand in the door way to Matt's bedroom, I look down at the notepad, and then place it on one of his many piles of mess. I put the water bottle by his bed and then find a blanket to cover Matt up with.

I was planning to go back to my place, and then drive-by and check on him in the morning, but I figure that it is getting kind of late, and what if he gets up in the middle of the night, slips on a pile of clothes, knocks his head on a dresser, gets a million paper cuts from landing in a pile of papers, and Dawson and Shay kill me after his funeral?

That would be bad.

I make sure that he's alright, and then I go and grab a blanket for myself and head down to the one piece of furniture that Matt does have: A couch.

It's not the most comfortable couch in the world, but it'll do.

Waking up in a strange place is not the problem with my life right now. Waking up in the living room of one of my ex-ish best friends, and my shoulder on fire from sleeping on the world's most uncomfortable couch, and knowing that life just isn't gonna be normal for a while… that's the problem with my life right now.

So I did it. I stayed like a good friend to make sure that everything was going to be alright, and the hopes that Matt wouldn't die in the middle of the night, because that would be really hard to explain to everyone.

In retrospect, I should probably stop joking about that because of… reasons. So, I wake up on TWMUI – The World's Most Uncomfortable Item, abbreviations are a Godsend, so I wake up on Matt's couch to see a fuzzy looking Casey stumbling toward the kitchen -I'm assuming it's the kitchen- stumbling toward the kitchen looking like he hadn't taken his pills yet, and he still looks like death.

"Matt." I say as I stiffly sit up on the couch. I see Matt jump slightly -which couldn't have been fun- like he didn't know that I was there. The way that he turns toward me all sway-ie-like, and looks a whole new level of confused suggests that he literally didn't know that I was here.

"Kelly?"

'What are you doing here?' Is the question that I'm prepared for right now. I'm gonna write my intentions on his forehead, backwards, and in permanent marker, and then tell him to look in the mirror ever time he's confused. I was not however prepared for:

"Want some coffee?" Which is what he asked, and now I'm on that same level of confusion that he was on, sweet.

We sit down and he gets everything out to make coffee. I can tell that he hasn't taken his pills because of how he's griping his chest casually like it's nothing, and not like he had major surgery a few days ago, whenever he thinks I'm not looking; which at this point my mess of a situation known as my shoulder/neck area is taking precedence. This hurts like a mother-

"So, should I even ask why you're here, or is this just nothing new?" He asks as he sets my coffee cup down and sits across from me. He has a dining room table and some very nice… folding chairs.

"Should I even ask where Hallie is, and why it looks like your place was looted for all the valuables?" I retort. I can't help but think that it's really none of my business, but I'm about to get to the bottom of this Hallie not being here shit right fucking now.

"We haven't… um, sorted everything out yet. She- we decided that now wasn't… that we needed a break for a while." Casey says as he stares down into his coffee mug. "There weren't really any valuables in here to begin with so looters probably would've been pretty pissed."

"When did-"

"A couple weeks ago… it was the- the 'kids thing' again." He's begun to uncomfortably wince every time he takes deeper breaths.

That's when I notice that Matt seems totally normal with this – with us; maybe even more than normal. We – Matthew Casey and Kelly Severide – are actually having a normal conversation without any blaming, or yelling, or threats of death. This is probably as good a time as any.

"Have you taken your meds yet?" That… is not what I wanted to say.

The way that Matt is looking at me suggests that that's not what he thought I was going to ask either. I watch as he stiffly pulls his pill bottle out of the pocket of his sweat pants.

How did he even get dressed without… Never mind.

"I- they make everything a little fuzzy and the chief called. He wants us to come in… Something about a serious talk that you would know about?" I reach over and grab the pills proceeding to shake two out of the bottle. I hand them to Matt and put the bottle back down again.

"Trust me; if we're going in for what I think we're going in for, you're gonna want those." I've taken to rubbing my shoulder on instinct, not even really think about it anymore. Hell, if I don't notice it most of the time, then who else will really care at this point.

Matt looks down at the pills and then back up at me. I can't believe what's happening in the world right now because he doesn't argue at all. He just picks up the pills and then… and then he takes them! He actually takes them without saying a word.

He then picks up the bottle and glances at the instructions for a second. He opens the bottle again and then shakes two more out.

"First you didn't want any and now an overdose is in your future." He glances at me and then puts the two pills down in front of me. I look back up at him like I don't even know what the Hell he's doing.

"I'm not blind Kel, you've been griping that shoulder more and more lately, and don't worry there only mild morphine pills." He says with raised eyebrows, but less in that 'Condescending Casey' way and more of a 'Concerned and Stubborn Casey' way.

"I wasn't worried, but one of us has to drive to the station, and I'm not letting you get behind the wheel right now. As for what that is all about…" I don't know how to start this conversation. I don't even know what the middle or the end sounds like. I had all this time to come up with a decent way to ask, 'So hey, what was up with that Sybil thing you did in the station right before you passed out from blood loss?' Yeah, cause that sounds totally acceptable.

"I- I said somethings after the fire didn't I? Somethings about Andy… and us… I don't remember it all, but I do remember that much." He does not look up to this conversation right now. He's obviously still in pain despite the pills he took and the rest he got. In all honesty he should still be in bed right now resting, but telling Casey what was best for him was like trying to… was like… trying to stop a firefighter from rushing into a burning building.

"Matt, I'm going to tell you something, and you better damn well listen. Not now, not ever, not in the several years I've known you, or the last shit filled month have I ever wished, not once, have I ever wished that it was you in the fire that killed Andy. Not once." He doesn't really look like he believes me, but if I'm going to do what I told the chief I was going to do, then I'm gonna have to make him understand.

"I know that it's been rough the last few weeks. I had no idea how rough until I took a look inside your fridge; but seriously, I cannot begin to tell you how much I wouldn't have blamed you if you would have dropped me in there. How sorry I am for blaming Andy on you and for everything else." I'm not sure that I'm ready for this conversation, but I have to tell him this; to get this out before I wuss out and never say anything about it ever again.

"Before… before all of this happened… before Andy and everything that went down after he died. I can't even begin to understand what was going through my head. I know… logically I know that there was no way that you could have stopped Andy from going into that damn building, that would have been like trying to stop a stampede. I know that. I just wanted it all not to be true so badly that I took it all out on you." I look up at him because I'd been staring at a spot in front of his mug for a little while now. He looks like he's not doing okay, and I know that as soon as I stop speaking he's gonna try and deny everything that I'm saying.

"I know that things can't ever go back to the way that they were, but after everything that's happened since… I hope that… that we can…" I don't know how to land this. If I say the right thing than maybe we can fix this eventually, but one wrong word and it'll never get better again.

"I know… I get what you're trying to say. Kelly… I've just wanted it to go back to normal for so long. I- I don't know why I said those things… any of those things in the locker room. It was like I could hear myself talking, but none of it made any sense." Matt has this weird eye contact thing he does when he's being brutally honest. I try not to let it get to me most of the time, but this conversation is way too serious for me to be messing around right now.

"Make no mistake you don't usually sound like you make a lot of sense anyway." I can't help it. I'm a slave to my wry sense of humor.

Instead of glaring at me and giving up on the conversation like he would have done so many times before now; Matt actually smirks! It's small, but it totally counts.

"As I was saying… I know that things are very screwed up right now, but… I think I'm beginning to understand what the chief meant by that… rift he was talking about."

And that's why we were friends.

No matter what anybody says: not because of convenience, or Andy, or formality, or anything else. The fact that Casey- that Matt knew what was up; that he knew what I was thinking or about to say before I could say it, because of despite that Goddamn rift!

Just because…

"Speaking of," He continues, "What's this meeting about?" And just like that it was mostly over. The hardest part was done. Matt still had a lot of recovering to do, and so did our friendship, but it was being taken care of.

Changing the conversation is like the universal, 'We good?' for guys. Accepting the change is the universal, 'Yeah, we good.' for guys too.

"Um… yeah, you're gonna want to rest up a little while before we go into the station…. There are some… some things that the chief and some of our squad members want to talk to you about." I can't avoid this forever, but Matt and I just got back on decent terms again, and Hell if I was gonna screw that up so soon.

"I'm not gonna like this am I?" Matthew Casey, Lieutenant of Truck 81 in Station 51, my friend, asks as he leans back a little in a folding chair at one of the only pieces of furniture, a dining room table that he has in his house; that he's probably going to need a little help with.

"Look at it this way, after the month from Hell that almost couldn't have gotten any worse if we really put some more work into, an intervention will be a cake walk." I- Kelly Severide, Lieutenant of Squad 3 in Station 51, the fixer of monumental fuck-ups, who will definitely be here to help pick up the pieces to Matt's house and everything else, say as I lean back in a folding chair too.

Yeah, what rift?

"Wait… did you say intervention?"

... Dammit!

-fini-

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Thank You so much for reading, I really hope you enjoyed it. I don't really want to do the intervention, but if anyone wants to write that up, and post it as like a sort of prompt fulfillment, that would be extraordinary! Thanks again. See ya! :


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